Three generations have passed, and the hatred that caused a separation between the Tarak and Mejale empires has not faded. Hibiki, a lowly third class of the male-only Tarak Empire, lives locked in a position of servitude in a society dedicated only to perpetuating the war against the female-only Mejale.

The events of a dare go very wrong, and Hibiki is trapped on board a newly launched Battleship as it comes under attack by Mejale pirates. The demonic Mejale quickly overcome the defenders and toss their captured prey into lifepods to be ejected into space. Unable to accept the dishonor of defeat, the Tarak commander decides to launch a new secret missile to destroy not only the enemy, but also the now captured Tarak battleship. The resulting mega-plosion not only tosses both the Mejale pirate ship and Tarak battleship to a distant place in the galaxy, but has initiated a quasi-organic fusion and transformation of the two ships.

Hibiki and the two other surviving Tarak males find themselves prisoners of a hoard of Mejale pirates, on a disabled damaged starship, lost in an uncharted portion of the galaxy. The arrival of a fleet of alien attackers forces a truce between the two groups and prompts a desperate defense in which all of the remaining operable Tarak and Mejale combat craft are launched. The battle does not well go for the defenders until Hibiki, who piloting a Vanguard combat suit collides with the Mejale pilot, Dita in her Dread strike craft, and their craft fuse together and transform into a VANDREAD, a weapon with limited cabin space, but incredible power. The success of the VANDREAD in combat appears to have changed Hibiki's fortune, but also appears to have captured Dita's attention. Will Dita ever leave Hibiki alone again?
[13 TV episodes.]

Three generations have passed, and the hatred that caused a separation between the Tarak and Mejale empires has not faded. Hibiki, a lowly third class of the male-only Tarak Empire, lives locked in a position of servitude in a society dedicated only to perpetuating the war against the female-only Mejale.

The events of a dare go very wrong, and Hibiki is trapped on board a newly launched Battleship as it comes under attack by Mejale pirates. The demonic Mejale quickly overcome the defenders and toss their captured prey into lifepods to be ejected into space. Unable to accept the dishonor of defeat, the Tarak commander decides to launch a new secret missile to destroy not only the enemy, but also the now captured Tarak battleship. The resulting mega-plosion not only tosses both the Mejale pirate ship and Tarak battleship to a distant place in the galaxy, but has initiated a quasi-organic fusion and transformation of the two ships.

Hibiki and the two other surviving Tarak males find themselves prisoners of a hoard of Mejale pirates, on a disabled damaged starship, lost in an uncharted portion of the galaxy. The arrival of a fleet of alien attackers forces a truce between the two groups and prompts a desperate defense in which all of the remaining operable Tarak and Mejale combat craft are launched. The battle does not well go for the defenders until Hibiki, who piloting a Vanguard combat suit collides with the Mejale pilot, Dita in her Dread strike craft, and their craft fuse together and transform into a VANDREAD, a weapon with limited cabin space, but incredible power. The success of the VANDREAD in combat appears to have changed Hibiki's fortune, but also appears to have captured Dita's attention. Will Dita ever leave Hibiki alone again?
[13 TV episodes.]

Vandread
This was a surprisingly fun series despite its cliched material. While loaded to the brim with scantily-dressed women and character personalities that are all too familiar with me, the environment in which Vandread is set in with men and women regarding each other as alien beings made for some interesting and funny moments. Both ends on the Nirvana have their mindsets as each character reacts differently regarding how to treat the other gender whether its Dita curiously trying to understand Hibiki in her own bubbly way, Paiway spying on the imperfections of the males with her "Pai checks", or Duelo curious over the differences between the two as he becomes the ship doctor. Regardless, both ends slowly learn to accept each other as the series progresses making for some solid character development. It just took me a few episodes to get used to the scantily-clad attire that many of the women pirates wore.

It seemed also there was also a developing plot revolving around the Harvester ships. While we are given some details to their nature and goals, we don't get enough details on why they are doing what they are doing. It's quite obvious that this conflict is left open-ended with what occurs during the final episode. Fortunately, the second season provides more answers to this plot element.

Visuals for this series are above average for a television series from 2000 sporting slick and detailed settings and character designs with bright color that brings life to the series. The mecha designs are animated in CGI which don't do a good job of blending in with the standard artwork quality. Still, battle scenes with the mecha and space combat scenes had fluid movement despite being somewhat of an eyesore.

Overall, Vandread left me unusually hooked from start to finish. While all it's loose ends weren't tied up, I moved on to enjoy the humor and plot twists found in Second Stage.

Vandread
I have been wanting to watch this for a while now...but the first episode left little to be desired...once i got past that, it was up, up and away...Since i am one of the few that like Sol Bianca, this was kinda like Sol Bianca with a punk kid thrown into the mix...I think Hibichi is kind of an a$$ and his character could have been toned down a bit...and what up with the old lady being the captain of the ship???seems like i am complaining you say? well that is it with the complaints...Chicks in Mecha just do it for me...the combining is kinda cool and funny...I am gearing up for the second stage as it was nice to have a cliff hanger in the end to get me wanting more...

Vandread
I first saw this one when cable was having a special with anime being one of then. Then I went and rented it at Hastings and I liked it. For us females the guys were cute and for the guys the girls were cute and the plot of it was good and I enjoyed watching it. I also liked the character design and enjoyed the story that goes along with it. This one I think you will like.

Vandread
Vandread was kind of stale. What I mean is that the story in the series seems to be good (the fact that men and women are at odds with each other). What it lacked was the development of the story. The protagonist is a little kid/punk who in the beginning wants to prove his worth to himself. Later on, his character slowly matures and he ends up wanting to prove himself less and be more responsible to his friends. I've this story line played so many times. The only thing I find unique is the mecha that's used in this series. You have a gundam like bot called a Vanguard and the space fighters that he fights along with are called Dreadnaughts. What makes it unique is that hero's Vanguard can merge with three other Dreadnaughts to create a fused vessel (hence the name Vandread). It's too bad that hero who pilots the Vanguard has a crap attitude from the get go and the fems around him have some issues to be worked out.

For harem fans, I wouldn't really recommend this series. It doesn't really focus on the harem side of anime. Although the ratio of women to men is 100 to 1. The sad part is that there are only three guys (inclding the hero) and all the women don't exactly like them from the start. It also doesn't have a romantic overture that most harem fans enjoy.

For the sci-fi geeks, the rent ranking is pretty much correct. You get your aliens, space dogfights, and cool looking mecha. The mothership ain't half bad neither. It's good to watch if you watch for mecha instead of story (which I doubt).

In the end, series one isn't that great. Unfortunately, the second series isn't any better either. I'll explain on that review page.

Vandread manages to combine the silly, elements of the harem genre, and a touch of Star Trek: Voyager to combine for a really enjoyable ride. Unlike Voyager, the writers here actually plotted out how our merry bunch would get home and the conficts along the way. So the trip makes sense. Plus, I liked how that even after the three males had been accepted into the pirate crew (out of necessity), there was still an element of distrust which then surfaced again before the series concluded. So while there are many things to force one to suspend their disbelief, the characters and their interactions come off as very real.

The crew consists of the standard bunch of characters -- a blonde bimbo, the tough broad, the old "Baasan" character (played by the fun Kyouda Hisako), the nice guy, the coward guy, the bishounen (beautiful young male) guy, the flighty but good hearted girl, etc. But since all are likable for different reasons, who cares if these kinds of characters have been done before? And the writers allow characters to be fleshed out and grow in different ways. One character even gets pregnant (artificially of course) and we see that progress. Some characters are given more background information provided. Meia's background provided a very telling look at life on Mejale which was very interesting. While I thought I would get tired of Dita's constantly calling Hibiki "Uchuujin-san" (literally "Space Alien-san" & translated by Pioneer as "Mr. Alien"), like Hibiki, I ended up just accepting it and moving on. I think that says something positive about the series. :-) Plus Dita received some character depth that was actually quite touching.

Weakness start with the fanservice. I know this is a pirate ship, but we get several girls dress up as if they are about to attend some sex party. And there are repeated jokes with sexual innuendoes to them. They get away with this since men and women haven't been around each other for three generations and thus can claim innocence to a certain extent.

The CGI can be a bit...distracting. I read on another site that this was perfectly blended in with the traditional animation. Not so. The CGI is good, but it isn't a good blend and at times was a little dorky looking. With a touch more work, it would have been better, especially if they could have shown ships as not so shiny and new. After a major combat operation, I would like to see some scarring, charring, or other signs of battle rather than a shiny new look that the CGI provided. But the CGI serves its purpose and this isn't a huge complaint.

There are a lot of unanswered questions still at the end of the series. Fortunately, as I rented this from Greencine, I saw that there was a second season called Vandread: Second Stage. Even had I not known this, the audience is given enough answers to resolve some questions, but others are raised. It ensured that there would be a sequel.

Bottom line: Thanks to Jan-chan for steering me to this title. Like Hand Maid May, Vandread managed to charm its way onto my buy list.

Last updated Saturday, October 09 2004. Created Saturday, January 03 2004.

Vandread
My first impressions of Vandread were that the CGI looked pretty cool and integrated with the usual animation much more smoothly than in, say, Dual or Pilot Candidate. Something about the overall animation style seemed unusual--why did it remind me of some recent films from Disney? Nevermind, no problem... Whereas one critic described the first couple of episodes as "sluggish", they seemed fast moving to me--a lot happens very quickly, and they were over before I expected. After all, Hibiki goes from lower-class factory worker on Tarak to prisoner on a ship crewed by fabulous babes all in the first one. Perhaps because so much plot was crammed into so few episodes, without anything I wasn't already expecting happening, my initial impression was that the story was a little unsophisticated. The dialogue went quickly, too, and even though I was watching the dubbed version it was hard to take it all in. I think the pacing of the series is more or less average after Volume 1. I could have sworn it was Tony Oliver (Lupin III, Chobits) playing the part of Hibiki, but I didn't see his name in the credits. As of yet I haven't seen "Second Stage", but after rewatching the first 13 episodes I noticed a lot of well thought out touches which I had missed the first time. On the other hand, it is kind of hard to believe these women are "pirates", yet they never do anything cruel to anybody who doesn't deserve it, and never get seriously hurt in battle. Other than that, I have no serious complaints about Vandread, although I kind of feel that the men-and-women-meeting-for-the-first-time angle wasn't played for all it could have been. If I hadn't been able to get my hands on Volume 1, and had entered the story somewhere along the way, I think most of the episodes would have given me the impression that the girls were pissed off at men in general, but I never would have guessed they had never even met until recently. Other website reviews compare Vandread to Nadesico and Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and though I enjoyed it, at this point I can't rate it as highly as those series. However, if there had been more amusing scenes of Vandread charachters blundering ignorantly into situations which ordinary men and women would find awkward and embarassing, (clever dialogue, please, not just men's faces getting shoved into boobs), then maybe I would! Apparently Vandread only became available in the US recently, but I had no trouble ordering low priced, apparently brand new VHS tapes (complete with neat little trading cards!) from Amazon.Com.
#88

Last updated Monday, March 29 2004. Created Wednesday, November 26 2003.

Vandread
Nov.5
guess i'll do what i can and get the first and 2nd seasons :-) this will take 2 weeks to get :-\
Nov.8
got the first season gonna watch it tommrow
nov.11
GREAT NEWS! I have finished both sereis (it is infact 2 series each containing 13 episodes becuase the title screens are differnt and the episode identification is differnt!) i will do my best to make a good review which i seem to have trobule doing :-) oh and this series and the 2nd stage are DEFINETLY A BUY! just didnt think the music was top notch :-\ other than that its good! expect a review in 2-5 days
REVIEW:(before I forget :-\)
This was an interesting anime in that the two sexes knew nothing about each other. This was the building block for many a funny scene. The CGI was VERY noticable in the first half (I still think their 2 differnt things...), but not as much in the second half. Some parts you just wanna slap the char's because of how stupid they are. I like the final episode but it does leave a few things untouched so :-\ other than that its good. If you wanna know how to get it email me.

Last updated Saturday, November 22 2003. Created Wednesday, November 05 2003.

Vandread
I have been able to collect all 26 episodes of this series, and I can share that Vandread and Vandread: Second Stage are really quite well done and very entertaining. The first 13 episodes have a mix of animation for the characters story line and CGI (computer generated imagery) for the Mecha/Space combat scenes. The second set of 13 episodes ( continuation also called the 2nd season) is of a better quality (larger budget?) and the distinction between the two media formats are a lot less noticeable.

While the story line does work to appeal to a younger audience with its endless jabs as to the ignorance of the two sexes of each other, it does it in a very intelligent and playful tone. There is a lot in fun in Dita chasing after Hibiki (Mr Alien !! oh Mr Alien !!) and silliness in her inquisitive torment of him as she tries to learn more about men. When other series might stoop to milking the story line for its fan service or ecchi value, Vandread succeeds in finding all the humor and whimsy of a situation, while staying (mostly) respectful.

There is a fair amount of Mecha action in each episode, as the crew has to fight off the robotic human-harvesting forces of the evil and vile earth. The battles seem to escalate as the hostile robots learn from their previous defeats and try different strategies. The final battle is a bit bewildering and unclear, but very satisfying none the less. At least a face is given to the faceless robot hordes.

There is a lot of strong character development for each of the main characters, as they learn to be more confident in themselves and in each other. As per story line, there are only a few loose ends that bothered me, but I wonder if there might not be another season in the works, so I will just have to let it go.

I will give this a buy rating (because it just so much fun,) with only few minor reservations.

I originally reviewed the fansub release of Vandread, which I enjoyed. I was impressed enough to purchase the US-dubbed release ...and they did a very good job of the voice overs .. much FUN!!

** comments on the Vandread - Taidouhen OVA ** Humm, 76 minutes of a recap of the first 13 episodes, with a new (and very fun) opening. I was hoping that they would carry the story forward and was very disappointed. Well, might have to wait for the 3rd season.

Last updated Monday, October 20 2008. Created Monday, November 03 2003.